Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age: A New Model for the Workplace

An great speech by Randy Nelson. Telling you exactly how to be that great artist..

http://www.edutopia.org/randy-nelson-school-to-career-video

Rocking Rough Animation 01

There you go.. Rough Animation No.1

Time Taken : 11 hours




What I have done :

• Add more key poses and add the breakdown poses.
• Added some key expressions and a few mouth shapes and expressions.
• Make the camera movement more subtle so focus can be on the character animation.
• Changed the way the guitars are thrown, both ways.
• Massaged the keyposes while adding in the breakdown poses.
• Added a reaction after the last throw of the guitar.

What I should be doing next :

• Ask for my feedbacks!!
• Refine each poses, and that includes checking the poses for the figures.
• Add more in between and start massaging the animation.
• Smoothen the curves and remove redundant keyframes.
• Get the head bobbing correct.
• Focus on animation of the eyes and eyebrows.
• Facial expression and Lip Sync.
• Create subtle animation for the Mr. Guitarist

Feedbacks for Rocking Blocking

Some feedbacks that I've gotten that's really good and should be archived here:

1. Continue to push the camera a lot more extreme at the end, so he looks really heroic and dynamic by the end? Camera would be lower and a lot closer?
   
2. Mr. Elvis move in towards the other character throughout the shot. He's being confrontational and you have a nice opportunity to show that by how he respects (or in this case, disrespects) the other characters personal space. You can have Elvis really get into the other guys face.
3. Milt Kahl's quote about animating dialog, 'the character is always going somewhere'. I know that's a little vague, but I interpret this to mean that a character is always on his way from one physical place to another, or from one idea to another, and ultimately trying to reach a particular goal. That's really important to understand what's going on below the surface for a character.
4. The vast majority of the time, people hit the extreme of their gesture on the vowel of the word they are emphasizing. So in this case, the full hand pose and gesture would hit on the "o" of "rocking." Every once in a while, you'll see someone deviate from this, but not usually...
5. you can anticipate those gestures by quite a bit (especially if they have a lot of emphasis in the voice track). Also, I think it's great that you are going to have him take a few steps. You have a good chance here to do something fun and physical with the character.
6. If you use the body motion to reinforce what is being said in the dialog, it will actually make things more clear to the audience.
7. push the poses a little bit further. It's debatable, but looks like his posture (neck through to knees) is straight on to the front of the camera through out that shot which flattens him out a bit- you can adjust that if you push the twists and tilts through out what you already have.
   Also be careful of his right hand gesturing too extremely while holding the guitar- you don't want the guitar to look hollow or weightless to him.
8. on the second shot, I would use a different focal lens. Is it set at 35-40 right now? Try using
   20-25 just to give the characters more depth and dimension. Right now, it's kind of flat. If there's 2 characters, and one is In the bg and the other is in the foreground, push it a little by doing this.
9. If you're going to do 3D,
   Might as well take advantage of it.
   
   
   
   
   

Rocking Blocking 02

New revision to the Blocking after some very good suggestions from a few si-fu(master) animators~

1. Changed the timing of the first major gesture at "rocking"
2. Mr. Elvis steps forward to challenge Mr. Guitarist
3. Added an ending to match the sound. Mr. Elvis throw back the guitar back after he finish expressing his passion.

Additional Time Taken : 1 hour.

More C&Cs please~

Acting/Dialogue Animation : BLOCKING

After lazing for so long, I've finally re-motivated myself again. Thanks to everyone for the faith and encouragement during this time. Here's the blocking, thanks to Ronald who shared some ideas with me.

This animation is for the February animation competition on 11 Second Club. I'm trying to squeeze time out, and hope that I can finish before the deadline. Please.. Please give me any C&Cs.. Alright here goes..

Time Taken : 4 hours



My scenario :
Mr. Guitarist get offended by Mr. Elvis ignorance, and challenged him. Mr. Elvis get emotional...

The Subtitles :
Voice One: "Well I'd like to see you try, you wouldn't last one day."

Voice Two: "Dude, I service society by rocking, okay? I’m out there on the front lines liberating people with my music. Rocking ain’t no walk in the park, lady."

First Buddies Meetup - 27 Novembver

We will be having our Animation Buddies Meetup coming Thursday, 27 Nov. 2008.

Location : TBC

Agenda :
Bring whatever you want. It could be a pitch, it could be a WIP, a script, or storyboards. But please let me know what you will be bringing to the meeting before coming.

Attendees :
1. yz (pitching of a short sequence)
2. James

More buddies are welcomed~

Birth of Animation Buddies Group

Animation Buddies is finally realised... Have been talking about friends about setting up a casual animation group, where people can share ideas about the new animation they wanna do, post, comment on animation.

Currently, the plan of Animation Buddies, is to:

1. Meet up once every 2 weeks to present ideas or animation.
2. All members a.k.a buddy of the group, can do animation he want. You can pitch to do a run cycle, a weight lift, a short film, or any animation! Just don't pitch to do modeling or anything not animation....
3. Every time we meet for our bi-weeklies, you show your stuffs, then we critic and comments, and you decide by the next session, what do you want to get done, and what you wanna present. Scheduling is totally up to you!
4. Critics are totally welcomed. If you are the type that keep quiet and don't wanna speak up, then stay at home! Afterall, that's the purpose of this group, to learn from each other, be it zero experience, or many years of experience!
5. This is not a business, just a interest group. So, we do not welcome people with commercial interest!
6. All buddies, please post your work up in this blog, so we can constantly trace progress and comments!

That's it guys, drop me an email if you are interested in joining this group! Currently only people residing in Singapore should apply as we believe in physical meet ups!

- yz